Step up your game, put your foot on the gas, and take control of your life. In order to transform your skills, you must first know what you’re passionate about. We all strive to gain technical skills, but we don’t know where to begin. You can’t get experience without skills, and you can’t get skills without experience.

We have to step out of our comfort zone in order to see a change in our life. Want to take the world by storm and revamp the norms of social media? Take ProSky’s Social Media Marketing course. Do you have dreams of closing deals with businesses and finding leads? Take our B2B-SDR course. No matter what track you embark on, there will always be a course for you. Practice makes perfect and projects give you a hands-on opportunity to gain skills, experience and put you one step closer to your dream job.

Here’s a list of 10 Skills you can gain by taking projects

1. Multi-tasking

2. Decisiveness

3. Quality Focused

4. Detail Oriented

5. Management

6. Self Confidence

7. Organization

8. Project Management

9. Communication Skills

10. Computer Competence

Where would we be in life without multi-tasking? The world is constantly moving at a fast pace and we must be able to keep up and control the many hats that we juggle. So you’re in school right? But you need to get a job in order to qualify for your industry and you are slumped because you are overly involved in clubs (you are awesome). Your future is important to you and you need to make time for what matters most. Students have to be focused and be able to manage their time well in order to be successful.

Why not start now? Get up, make a list, and get on track to your future. Your planner will become your best friend and iCal will be synced to every device you own. You will be ready for anything that life throws at you.

Working in a team setting and being able to execute ideas through hands-on decision making, organization, and effort, is a good way to get your foot in the door. Companies look for both hard and soft skills in order to help with the hiring process. No one wants to hire someone that can’t work and communicate with others. Project management is a huge technical skill that is often swept under the rug by students. Without effective project management, a project will fall apart. Developments in your project may be late, less organized, and can sometimes affect your reputation with a company. Priorities, organization and the overall purpose of your project can be swayed during the process of bad project management.

Recently, 131 students participated in our Social Media Marketing and we asked two team leaders to share their experiences with us.

Hunter DeVries is a Social Media Marketing Student from the LDS Business College in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Wil Rivers is a Journalism, Music Management Student from Georgia State University in Atlanta Georgia.

Can you explain your overall experience with a ProSky Project so far?

Hunter:Working with other people using video chat for meetings has been a great experience. The challenge of just having an unknown business concept and developing an analysis on it, as well as looking at their competitors to create a strategy to help their business through social media is incredible.

Wil:From the standpoint of my teammates, it put me in contact with students on the other side of the country. Most of my teammates attended a trade school and I was interested in seeing their skills and how their school life compared to mine. ProSky is fun, laid-back, innovative, and creative. You really have the freedom to express yourself during the project and work on both your hard and soft skills.

How do you think the skills that you have learned during your project help you with your overall professional development?

Hunter: When I signed up for my class, I had no idea that I would have an opportunity like ProSky. It’s been an extra responsibility, but it has really pushed me to make every minute count and that’s helped me out tremendously.

Wil:My project pushed me because I didn’t know much about the company or it’s specialties. Tech isn’t something I'd normally be interested in and I appreciated the education aspect of learning new skills as well as seeing how I could improve a company that I knew nothing about in such a short amount of time. It made me interested in continuing to study the subject after the project.

Do you feel comfortable going into the workforce after your experience with this project?

Hunter:For sure! I have always been confident, but I used to tend to be afraid to talk to a CEO. I was nervous to do video chats because I had done them with friends but never in a professional setting. I realized that it is all about being yourself and contributing to your group to collaborate to reach one common purpose. It helped me realize that anything is attainable if you are willing to put in the work.

Wil:I do feel like I am prepared. I definitely have to credit the fact that we were able to complete this extensive project in such a short amount of time. Coming up with an idea, planning, execution definitely made me feel prepared.

What piece of advice would you give to students contemplating about working on a project?

Hunter: Just do it. If you never do it, you will never know if you like it or not until you try. If you really want to go into the field, I understand that you have work and school, but there’s always time if you make it a priority. Doing your best will not only show on paper but will be recognized later by others.

Wil: Do it. My company Astroprint was something that I had no idea about before, and even after learning about it, I was still kind of confused. What I thought I knew about 3D printing was completely wrong. After working with my company mentor Drew, I was able to get a better understanding. I was able to get out of my comfort zone, work with a company that I would naturally not have had an interest in and make a successful product. By getting that education, it sparked my interest and I have been able to enjoy it. I think overall, ProSky projects are just a really cool, fun, non-time consuming way to hone in on skills or learn new ones.

If you are looking to build more soft skills and upgrade your hard skills, check out ProSky’s training courses where you can work with real people and real companies!